LONDON—When it comes to Olympic pressure, Mike Krzyzewski and Geno Auriemma only hope they do as well as Danny Boyle.

Coach K and Coach A merely have to direct the vaunted U.S. men’s and women’s basketball teams to expected gold medals. Boyle had to coach a rookie who in earlier times could have had him beheaded if he didn’t make her look good.

Boyle was the impresario of the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony. The job came with a lot of risks, none bigger than when Boyle decided to ask the Queen to star in the taped opening segment.

It turned out the old gal can really act, at least by Stiff Upper Lip standards. In case you weren’t one of the billion or so who saw it on TV, the Queen co-starred with Daniel Craig in a James Bond spoof.

Special Agent 007 picked her up at Buckingham Palace, they got in a helicopter and then parachuted into the Opening Ceremony.

Critics were raving Saturday about the segment. Her Majesty not only had never acted before, she’s spent the past 60 years perfecting a stone face. The mere sight of Elizabeth II doing something remotely Monty Python-like was pleasantly stunning to her millions of subjects.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said the Queen was “delighted to be asked to be involved in something so exceptional.”

Who knew she was such a ham?

“The Queen made herself more accessible than ever before,” said Boyle, who’s better known for directing Slumdog Millionaire.

He was thrilled when Elizabeth went for his unprecedentedly kooky idea. According the Elias Sports Bureau, no head of state had ever appeared in a skit to open an Olympics. But what if she couldn’t pull it off?

Krzyzewski may have to deal with NBA prima donnas, but we’re talking the Queen here. She lives in a nicer house than LeBron. She has more money than Kobe. But in basketball terms, she’d never made a layup.

Even if she had less acting range of a bowl of rice pudding, Boyle could not leave the Queen on the cutting room floor.

He apparently didn’t win an Oscar for nothing. It also helped that Boyle limited the Queen to one classic line.

“Good Evening, Mr. Bond.”

It was not exactly a Shakespearean challenge, but give her a break. How would you like to make your acting debut on the world’s biggest stage?

“She is a good actor,” Boyle told NBC. “You don’t have to tell her something twice. She picks it up straight away, about cameras and angles.”